Governance of Disruptive Technologies

Description: To date, most governance frameworks for disruptive technologies – technologies that challenge existing markets, governance frameworks, norms and values, and social and political orders – focus on acute and immediate effects. Our governance frameworks do not grapple adequately with the complex implications of the development and use of these technologies.

This project analyzes politics and policy related to disruptive technologies in four ways:

Develop historical case studies of governing disruptive technologies in the US and elsewhere. These assessments will explore the benefits and risks posed by these technologies, and whether/how the governance approaches developed dealt with these issues appropriately;

Using these case studies, we will develop a framework that assesses the governance approaches developed to govern disruptive technologies;

Develop our framework further by considering the utility of governance frameworks that have been developed but not yet implemented;

Use this framework to suggest governance approaches for emerging cases.